So we all talk to characters don’t we, and sometimes you hear them back. Whether it be just thinking that someone would like something or shouting at them because they’re being so stupid. It could be that you just want a friend that listens and other times you’re professing your undying love for them and you heart flutters and constricts and you wonder why they aren’t real.

So here’s a snippet of some thoughts I had while reading Artemis by Andy Weir.

Hey Jazz,

Afraid this is not your usual correspondence but I hope you’ll humour me. I imagine things aren’t really going great for you eh (yo! it’s like I’m Rudy)?

You really aren’t the best person you know? But you’ve got a total badass Lady Deadpool vibe going on (probably looking more like him than when we first me – that’s creepy…. we’ve never met…. I’ve just stalked you…. moving on!)

How’s the moon? Artemis doing alright? Pretty cool place, I’ll see if I can visit and maybe you could show me around? You’ve probably got you EVA Masters Guide going right? You spent a lot of time complaining about tourists so I would like the authentic experience.

I love the moon, it’s so cool to be able to see it from down here on Earth. Mars is just a bit far away but it would be cool to get there as soon as we get something set up. Different challenges to the moon and probably not as practical, but a girl can dream.

How’s you Dad doing? And Dale, things going better there?

I’m worried about who’s reading this so trying to be PG but how’s that reusable condom coming along. Give it a spin yet?

I’m hoping you’ve not got yourself in a pickle again. And you better be working hard, none of this criminal mastermind stuff that gets you all tied up in things you would be better not being involved in.

Something I thought about is how hard it must be to meet someone right? I mean, there isn’t a lot of you…. but then again villages did it…. moving on!

Yeah, you’re a smart girl and the science is totally cool in this but it’s maybe not the focus…. you made sure that you were the star of the show. You’re no Watney (don’t know if you hear about him) but at least you’ve got heart.

So…. I’m going to go. Next time you get a shipment I’ll sneak you some things. Would totally love to get involved.

So we all take to characters don’t we, and sometime you hear them back. So here’s a snippet of some thoughts I had while reading Mort by Terry Pratchett. (Anything in italic is what I think Mort is saying, if you’ve read the book you’ll really understand why and the humour behind it)

Dear Boy, (Mort!), “What a coincidence”

How’s it going? In all honesty I can’t really tell with you. Life just get’s you down doesn’t it, or up? Am I making sense? Anyway, I don’t know where we left off but your world had gone completely upside down and inside out. Things are always happening on that great big turtle.

So….. have you gone back to Sto Helit yet, you really seemed set on it, also how’s the girl? She really is something isn’t she? Bet you didn’t see that one coming but I’m not sure we did either. You really don’t know how lucky you are that Terry Pratchett wrote you , I mean, he just did such a good job capturing you you know?

So let’s get serious, things got tough with Death didn’t they. Bet that’s not a phrase you hear in Discworld a lot… or maybe it is. But seriously, how did you think messing with the space time continuum was going to go? I had to put you down, but just for a little bit.

Your mate (not really) Rincewind saved the day, well for me he did. Not that you’re not excellent, just it kinda got slow and you were just being so stupid! But I mean, where can I find a Binky, he’s like the best, flying horse, it’s like we’re living in Harry Potter (well I was written before that so got no clue what you’re talking about).

So, you scared us for a minute…. Don’t do it again, just don’t go there ok? It’s not your job, I know your name reflects it but come on, you’re just not him. I suppose you’ve accepted your limited time now and at least you’ve changed back because that doesn’t always happen. Poor Albert. Did you egt to keep Binky? I can’t remember.

Do I get to read more about you? If so when? (This isn’t happening you know) I KNOW! But come on, it’s Pratchett, he was one of the greatest authors to ever live and I never experienced him until he was gone. Which one of you went for him?

Alright alright, calm down boy (MORT!), I’m going, you’ve got a busy life full of living. I did really like you Mort (It’s Mo…. Oh, thanks), take care out there, you don’t know what, or who’s around the corner.

So I went without my laptop for two weeks and I that time finished 3 books. (Typical of me to read and then not have a device to write any reviews.) SO! I’m planning on writing these reviews and publishing them over the next few days.

So I started read this as part of a buddy read that in all honesty pretty much failed. I don’t know how you buddy read but I don’t like doing a certain number of chapters a day because as soon as you miss one day you fall so far behind that you never really catch up and everyone just gets sick of the reading and no one really finishes.

I remember trying to pick this book up when I was much younger after the film came out. My mum owned Northern Lights but because the film was called Golden Compass I never made the connection. However, since the film the ideas of the story have really stuck with me and I tend to come back to thinking about it every so often.

So I really enjoyed the story in this book actually but I did not enjoy the reading process that I was shoehorned into and after a while I admit I gave up because I just wanted to consume this book rather than starving myself with limited chunks. I’ve read my entire life and usually that consists of just picking up a book when I can. I always carry it around with me on the off chance that I get to read a few pages here and there. I don’t like forcing time out of my day for reading which is why I don’t do readathons.

I really enjoyed the incredibly unique world that the author built up for us. It was just a lot of fun to be part of this magic system and the fantastical elements at play. My favourite part was when other species apart from humans were introduced. I just love when fantasy does it but explains the different politics in such a way that brings to light the differences between them instead of having to see from a particular perspective to understand. Most of this was from a first person perspective but nearer the end there was some foreshadowing and dramatic irony added in from other people’s discussions that our main character was not privy to.

This was just a solid read and I am looking forward to continuing on with the story but I’ll read it how I want to read it. I actually think that I’ll be picking up the beautiful anniversary editions because they are the nicest covers out there.

I know I talked a lot about the reading process but I think that’s a really important part of when you read a story. It changes how you feel about a book or a story. The experience of reading is perhaps 50% of how you feel about a book.

I’m planning on setting up an etsy and selling some homemade crochet book sleeves. It would be nice to know if anyone is interested?

So I did something with this book that I’ve not done in a while. I sat down and read most of it in one sitting straight through to 3am.

Going into this book I was really skeptical about it because of the overwhelming negativity behind it. I think the main problem is that people were thinking about the concept of not following the traditional main protagonists in a world changing event.

I think what I realised is that I like Patrick Ness’s contemporary work. I love the way he writes the dialogue and just the stories and progression. I just really enjoyed the characters that we followed and I think Ness creates well rounded characters without just following one at a time. The way he eludes to past history without having to describe everything allows the reader to sort of plant their thoughts into the book.

So each chapter contains the snippet of whats happening in the ‘traditional’ main storyline but in all honesty it isn’t needed but it doesn’t hinder the story. It being there reminds you of the books premise overall. I think it sort of gave you some foreshadowing but the main point of this book was focussed around Mike and what was happening with him.

I just couldn’t put it down and I think the negative feelings are really quite unjustified. I think people made this book into something it wasn’t and for that reason I can understand why people may have felt let down by it.

I personally enjoyed Ness’s insight into what he thinks happens to the rest of the people in the vicinity while the heroes are off doing what they do. I think it is also an interesting look into we as a society react to things we don’t understand or don’t want to think about.

Pick up this book and make your own mind up because the discussion in the community maybe doesn’t fit what you would feel.

I also have decided that even with my negative start of Patrick Ness’s work that I love him as an author. I’ve often wondered if you can love an author even if you hate some of their work. I’ll be writing a blog post about this soon hopefully.

Anyway, that’s me for the day, take care of yourselves out in the world of non-book nerds.

There may be some spoilers for the stories contained in the sense that I discuss what some of the stories are about.

So Because You Love To Hate Me was a relatively hyped book when it was announced because of its unique collaboration between Booktubers and some of the best known YA authors.

There was some discussion around it when it was relased but in all honesty it’s sort of fallen by the wayside. Now I don’t know if it’s because it had such high expectations or because Booktubers don’t want to promote something they were a part of due to their bias.

In all honesty it was a really interesting concept but it was just average in all honesty. I like really dark villains and after reading Now I Rise by Keirsten White this was incredibly weak for villains.

I did enjoy the different takes from the authors and some of the creative ideas that came from it but I think some of the prompts were unbeliveably simple and boring. The lack of creativity in some of the stories really did let the overall of this anthology down. I struggle to see that when you have such a cool opportunity that you pick a basic fairy tale.

The first story in this was maybe one of the most creative because it was an original idea and I can see the downfall of this being that you don’t get a full picture. I loved You You, It’s All About you again because of the original concept but Adam Silvera did such a good job of it and this coming from me who did not like More Happy Than Not. The best retelling was certainly The Sea Witch, you could tell it was a prequel to The Little Mermaid. I love how we see Ursula in a completely different light and how Marissa Meyer did such a good job of conveying a world and setting in such a short story.

My favourite was Shirley & Jim which was a spin of Sherlock Homes and a look at the young Moriarty. It was just such a breath of fresh air and it was a simple story but I just really liked how it was done.

The most unique story much have been beautiful venom which was a diverse take on medusa. It was such a cool Asian twist that felt so authentic and well researched. Will definitely be looking out for Cindy Pon’s books.

I don’t want to say the stories I didn’t like but would I say it’s worth a read? Yes, but for full prince, I’m unsure.

So I’ve been away for a while. Don’t know if anyone has noticed? But I haven’t actually written anything in about 2/3 months. I used to use scheduled uploads and it just became too much for me. My priorities were just out of wack so I’m going to write when I feel like it and release it as soon as I finish writing it.

Sooooo I think it took me about a month to read this book even though I was really excited for it. I did take me write a while to read Now I Rise and I could kick myself for not getting to that book because I loved how dark and twisted it was. Especially as it was a YA book and Now I Rise kept this dark feel which I really loved.

God, I’m so out of practice with this….

So the book really takes a while to pick up because there’s a lot of political maneuvering in the world. What was really interesting is that we get two points of view that you will understand if you finished the first book.

There’s a lot of emotions and difficulties that our characters face. We finally do get to see the raw brutality of Lada in this book to represent the infamous Vlad the Impaler, but more interestingly we get her justification. It’s sort of hard not to be on her side when her justifications makes sense for the most part and that we get to be so close to her and in her head makes it difficult to fight against her. I don’t know about you but I always love the antihero (Deadpool for instance).

Radu is still the hardest character for me to make my mind up about. But he has such a change throughout this story after some events and that really makes him such a full character. I am upset about his choice at the end because I thought he had finally seen things for what they are but he is always fighting with his loyalty.

I am very interested to see where things are going in the next book because I can only imagine the insanity to ensue. I honestly cannot believe that this is only a trilogy because I can really imagine so many more books. I don’t know if this is because I went away and tried to learn about Vlad himself and seeing his life and all the shenanigans that he got up to made me realise just how much more could happen.

So I think that’s me! I actually wrote something!

Thanks for taking the time to read and I hope you have fun in whatever you’re doing

So I’ve been pretty unmotivated to write blogs recently. Part of that is due to my favourite bloggers not being able to post so I don’t feel that drive to respond. And secondly I have a new hobby that has taken over my life. Crochet…. I’ve spent some time trying to combine these two loves and come to something that has fulfilled me.

So here is what I think is a rather pretty crochet/book picture that I took. I’ve not spoken about Lord of Shadows because I didn’t like it. For me it just fell so flat and I never wanted to pick it up. I loved Lady Midnight because of how fresh and well written he plot was but it was all so lackluster for me in this sequel.

I still like the characters and relationships but some of it was quite unnecessary. I was surprised by the ending but didn’t really have an emotional reaction to it. The third book isn’t due to 2019 I believe but I’ll be 22/23 then and I might be too old for it….. Does anyone else get that feeling?

On a more positive not I am SO excited for her other series, mostly the Magnus Bane novels. I love Shadowhunters, I love the world and characters and I always will but at some stage I fear I may have to leave it behind.

So for the crochet portion. Even if you don’t like crochet then that’s fine, I’m not going into technicalities because I am not very skilled. But here is a little portrait of Church the cat I made.

Problem was that I know Church is dark grey with yellow eyes but trying to portray that in this craft is quite hard. I also wanted to a scornful Church but being unable to do that I thought about how Church reacts to Jem and Jace then this would be alright.

Also something else I have’t shared is the fact that I keep a journal of the books I read. This is my entry for Lord of Shadows, feel free to read.

I tend to use this journal as a short snappy note idea. It means I can go back and look at what I thought. I know I have my reviews on my blog but there’s just something so appealing about the physical format and feeling like I am creating a catalogue. It also means that people can look through it and see what I’ve read and a brief summary of what I thought.

Well guys let me know what you thought of Lord of Shadows and also what you thought of the new style.